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> a non-insignificant amount of people in tech take this seriously We're all here to make ourselves feel good saying we Took A Stand. In reality, four weeks f

> a non-insignificant amount of people in tech take this seriously We're all here to make ourselves feel good saying we Took A Stand. In reality, four weeks from now, do you think anybody will still be talking about it? I made this same mistake. I was pretty convinced that people were taking Copilot seriously, and that there was possibly going to be ramifications for Microsoft. I wasn't particularly looking forward to it, but I rated it as plausible. One stonewall and a few weeks later, here we are. Hardly a word anymore about it. I think if there's going to be any real, long-term change, we have to find a way to combat the real threat: life goes on. (Made me smile to phrase it like that, actually. That wasn't the combat I had in mind...) It's true, though. Ask anyone in a month whether they take this seriously. They'll say yes. And what's it worth? It's all we can do, of course. But that's just another way of saying we're powerless. Like it or not, we aren't in control. And unless we can figure a way to get some measure of control, then what are we doing here, really? Your three bullet points are wonderful, and I agree entirely with them. And it won't change a damn thing. I'm not sure what to do about it.

dijit 5y ago
Can’t speak for everybody of course, but I am currently planning the migration away from the Apple ecosystem and I’m heavily invested (watch, phone, MacBook, Mac Pro, Apple TV). I’ve also been recommending to friends and family to move to droids with microG. The largest concern I have for them is that they’re stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea. Most people aren’t going to run a droid without google, or Linux on the desktop.
- brigandish 5y ago
  > I am currently planning the migration away from the Apple ecosystem Me too. I told my wife today that I'll be looking at a feature phone as I'm not sure I can be bothered with jumping through all the hoops required to de-Google an Android phone. I remember a time before mobile phones, I was just fine without one - smartphones aren't that good, just convenient.
  - hnlmorg 5y ago
    It's good that you're principled enough to do that but you guys will be rounding errors in Apple's revenue. Most people don't even know about this and those that do, most wont care. Even of those who do know and do care, most aren't motivated enough to change their habits beyond writing a few angry words on a forum Apple are never going to read anyway. Those that do change their buying habits, yourselves, are by far in the minority. And while you might have some influence over what tech your friends, family and significant other might buy, let's be completely honest, it's not going to be enough to sway them into using an unbranded phone over a feature that they themselves likely don't care much about but happily assume the role of outrage when around you because we are generally social animals. This is companies consistently get away with pissing off their customers. It's the same reason politicians get away with pissing off their electorate. Even in a crowded space people seldom get outraged enough to change their buying habits. But in an industry where the options are already limited (Android or iOS) and where people only buy products, at most, once every two years...? Sorry but literally nobody outside your social circle will notice if you stopped buying Apple products. I get this is a depressing response and I'm not suggesting that you shouldn't follow through with your threat. But I hear this threat posted unironically a lot and it seems to me that people think they have the power to invoke change simply by moaning on a few message boards or buying a competitors products for a couple of years (then that competitor does something to earn our outrage and we're back to the first company again). But real change takes effort. A lot of effort. More effort than most are willing to commit. Hence why the GP rightfully commented that in a months time people will have moved on to their next outrage.
    - cinquemb 5y ago
      What you are saying isn't that depressing, I think it makes a lot of sense. But perceived abuses do take time for people to eventually take action that can actually effect companies/states bottom lines. I can imagine at some point a 0day targeting iOS devices that when they connect to a public wifi network with a compromised router, it distributes CP malware/botnet on to their device and then everyone else that connects to that device in the future (muddying the waters). Similar actions could also be taken against other companies and state entities systems. And these actions don't need to rely on most of the population to take them. The more these "kill chain" like systems become automated and cheap to deploy, the more incentive individuals will have to pursue these types of attacks.
- swiley 5y ago
  My girlfriend manages with Pop_OS! At this point it's more user friendly than Windows.
- YLYvYkHeB2NRNT 5y ago
  You can run an Android device without ever signing into anything Google. F-droid and Aurora store, APK direct downloads. It is possible. I tried GrapheneOS, but am concerned about long-term development, hardware compromises. Their Element/Matrix threads can get very toxic.
roenxi 5y ago
> Like it or not, we aren't in control. The typical Apple customer is forking over thousands of dollars. They have substantial control. This isn't like a government where you need a plurality of voters to agree before anything starts to happen. Apple is running software on their phone that will either (a) do nothing or (b) call the police on them. The situation is questionable even for a normal consumer, let alone a nervous one. Maybe most people will weigh up the situation and keep buying Apple. But they are making a choice, they aren't powerless. And some will start asking how important smartphones really are.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- wizzwizz4 5y ago
  > And some will start asking how important smartphones really are. I'm having to buy a smartphone to be able to wash my clothes.
- mirkules 5y ago
  My question is, who has funded this feature all the way from PoC to product? How did Apple calculate the ROI on this feature? It’s not like end users are tripping over themselves to have all their photos scanned. Does Apple just have gobs of money to burn on things like this that will not increase its bottom line by even one penny? There is probably funded from somewhere, and I’d like to know who is paying for it.
  - seanp2k2 5y ago
    Probably, as other commenters have said, a mix of behind-the-scenes political pressure to give feds access to phone data for people they’re interested in and an effort to get them to back down on anti-trust and other things that governments are realizing they can milk tech companies for more money on.
speleding 5y ago
I still hope there is a chance that Apple may change course after they realise they may not have thought this through very well. Especially the argument that this can be weaponised really easily worries me, and it looks like they overlooked it. For example: some joker sends you a Whatsapp with a lewd picture, WhatsApp by default saves all pictures to your photo roll => you are now on the naughty list. I really hope they come up with a good answer to that one (or just abandon this unholy plan).
p2t2p 5y ago
I am cancelling my apple one subscription as we speak.
swiley 5y ago
I completed my move to the Pinephone and formatted my iPhone over this. I'm probably not alone.
- queuebert 5y ago
  I would love to read some first-hand experiences of the Pinephone or Librem phones on here.
  - swiley 5y ago
    I've used one for a year now, it's a UMPC running Linux that can make phone calls. What do you want to know?
- voakbasda 5y ago
  Indeed. The PinePhone is my current plan for ditching my iPhone. I had planned to upgrade to the new 13 this fall, so thank goodness this happened now. Apple just saved me a lot of money!
sureglymop 5y ago
The real problem is late stage capitalism. The fact that a private company is too "big" and too powerful to be regulated by a single nation or even a coalition of nations is a big part of the problem. At the same time, changes in laws, constitutions and regulations take too long so they can't adapt quickly enough to edge cases. And even then, these companies have too much power and money, so they can do lobbying and so on. I see Apple as a particularly dangerous example, because they also have the "vote of the people". They are marketing wise on a level where they have an invincible reputation. People see the brand but almost no longer realize that this is a private company whose main goal is to generate profits. It might sound naive or obvious but as we go on this will only continue and there will be less and less ethical accountability.
- rorykoehler 5y ago
  These companies are just pseudo-departments of governments. They are working together on this rubbish
bArray 5y ago
> I was pretty convinced that people were taking Copilot seriously I think people used Copilot and realised it was a bit of a nothing burger. > find a way to combat the real threat: life goes on. That's the curse of the news cycle. But actions that do live on are monetary ones. When Apple miss sales targets, perhaps they will take note. > Your three bullet points are wonderful, and I agree entirely with them. And it won't change a damn thing. I think the last one is the most important, if each of us here can multiply the awareness of the problem, we can start to make real difference. Tech people have a massive influence over what devices ordinary people buy, after all, who will they go to for tech advice? > I'm not sure what to do about it. It's a tough problem, but what I do know is that doing nothing will 100% change nothing.
dmz73 5y ago
You can do two things: - fight : you will either join the establishment or have your life ruined but you won't change things - adapt : accept the things are the way they are and make the best of the situation In either case you can still get caught by the machine and get ground up, it has always been like that and as long as we are human it will always be like that. Any change that will happen is generational, 20 or 40 years from now the issues that are important to you now will be addressed by people who floated up to the top and are in position to make changes.
45ure 5y ago
>I'm not sure what to do about it For starters, please give up the defeatist attitude. They deserve the frontlash; even if it serves no purpose, as you describe it. Apple have placed 'Privacy' at the core of their messaging, in order to sell their high-end products. In comparison to the already excessive pearl clutching based on moral panic within the ecosystem e.g. sanitising and censoring language and apps. This is a scope-creep via thought terminating clichés like 'think of the children' and the boogeymen, which will not be enough of an explanation, when Apple ID's start getting locked out for capturing entirely innocent moments of their children's lives, or the intimate holiday snaps etc. Conversely, someone can weaponise it by sending you content that will besmirch your good name, or send you away for a stint in prison. Nonetheless, they will be a couple of moves away from either a lawsuit/collective action or a pushback from consumers, especially when the algorithm (wrongly) labels you as paedo, porn baron or worse -- then placing you in a Kafkaesque nightmare to explain yourself. https://www.apple.com/privacy/docs/A_Day_in_the_Life_of_Your_Data.pdf https://www.apple.com/privacy/docs/A_Day_in_the_Life_of_Your...
- kktkti9 5y ago
  They’ll scan content if you have it set to goto iCloud so as to avoid being an accomplice. Turn off sync to iCloud, make local backups only. Who is to say politicians who started threatening tech companies publicly haven’t made threats behind closed doors about Apple maybe being on the hook as an accomplice for distribution? My company only exists because our CEO had input on an executive order years ago. We hardly “made it” in the free market. The headlines never tell the full story. Media colludes with politics to generate “the right” sentiment. The spec and implementation details aren’t being discussed, just classic speculation on privacy and overreach. So much for this site having a higher level of discourse and it’s efforts to dissuade repetitive and knee jerk commentary though. We’d have nicer things if we discussed how things work and instead of what corporate media wants us to discuss.
  - salawat 5y ago
    What we should really be hammering on I think is the vendor lock-in, walled garden, and monopolistic aspects. To me this CP scanning nonsense is Apple waving a carrot in front of the Establishment to get the Anti-Trust heat off, while selling everyone else on further degrading privacy through a slam dunk deliverable to satisfy the short-game players, but that's just me.
flemhans 5y ago
I can't have a phone or a computer that snoops on me to this degree. So for me I definitely won't change or forget in a week. Unless they solve it, there's no more Mac or iPhone for me. (This may actually be a Good Thing)
quickthrowman 5y ago
> In reality, four weeks from now, do you think anybody will still be talking about it? Nope, and it won’t have the slightest impact on Apple’s revenue or earnings either.
amarant 5y ago
Well, you can't save your friends, but you can save yourself: https://nixos.org/ https://nixos.org/
charbonneau 5y ago
A typical defeatist neo-luddism stance. You are part of the problem. Instead of spreading your nihilism, you could be a force for good. We are not powerless. We can make a difference. Contact your elected officials. Start a movement. Create a direct competitor to Apple. I know it’s tough, but we all just need to come together and stop the negativity. Excuses or results. You choose. Sent from my iPhone
- whoaisme 5y ago
  God pompous people like you are the worst. You are the same idiot that thinks recycling is the answer. It's actually your BS we have the power garbage that is the problem.
- simonh 5y ago
  Contacting your local representative is the right move. Bear in mind this change is specifically to comply with a law mandating the scanning of photos stored in the cloud, that’s why apart from the opt in for children’s iMessages, it only applies to photos you upload to iCloud storage. The way to stop companies complying with the law is to get the law changed.
simonh 5y ago
> Like it or not, we aren't in control. Yes you are. Leave the default and don’t enable this for your children’s iPhones, and the iMessage change won’t affect you. Switch off iCloud photo storage and none of your photos will be scanned. You have complete control over this.

dijit 5y ago

Can’t speak for everybody of course, but I am currently planning the migration away from the Apple ecosystem and I’m heavily invested (watch, phone, MacBook, Mac Pro, Apple TV). I’ve also been recommending to friends and family to move to droids with microG. The largest concern I have for them is that they’re stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea. Most people aren’t going to run a droid without google, or Linux on the desktop.

brigandish 5y ago
> I am currently planning the migration away from the Apple ecosystem Me too. I told my wife today that I'll be looking at a feature phone as I'm not sure I can be bothered with jumping through all the hoops required to de-Google an Android phone. I remember a time before mobile phones, I was just fine without one - smartphones aren't that good, just convenient.
- hnlmorg 5y ago
  It's good that you're principled enough to do that but you guys will be rounding errors in Apple's revenue. Most people don't even know about this and those that do, most wont care. Even of those who do know and do care, most aren't motivated enough to change their habits beyond writing a few angry words on a forum Apple are never going to read anyway. Those that do change their buying habits, yourselves, are by far in the minority. And while you might have some influence over what tech your friends, family and significant other might buy, let's be completely honest, it's not going to be enough to sway them into using an unbranded phone over a feature that they themselves likely don't care much about but happily assume the role of outrage when around you because we are generally social animals. This is companies consistently get away with pissing off their customers. It's the same reason politicians get away with pissing off their electorate. Even in a crowded space people seldom get outraged enough to change their buying habits. But in an industry where the options are already limited (Android or iOS) and where people only buy products, at most, once every two years...? Sorry but literally nobody outside your social circle will notice if you stopped buying Apple products. I get this is a depressing response and I'm not suggesting that you shouldn't follow through with your threat. But I hear this threat posted unironically a lot and it seems to me that people think they have the power to invoke change simply by moaning on a few message boards or buying a competitors products for a couple of years (then that competitor does something to earn our outrage and we're back to the first company again). But real change takes effort. A lot of effort. More effort than most are willing to commit. Hence why the GP rightfully commented that in a months time people will have moved on to their next outrage.
  - cinquemb 5y ago
    What you are saying isn't that depressing, I think it makes a lot of sense. But perceived abuses do take time for people to eventually take action that can actually effect companies/states bottom lines. I can imagine at some point a 0day targeting iOS devices that when they connect to a public wifi network with a compromised router, it distributes CP malware/botnet on to their device and then everyone else that connects to that device in the future (muddying the waters). Similar actions could also be taken against other companies and state entities systems. And these actions don't need to rely on most of the population to take them. The more these "kill chain" like systems become automated and cheap to deploy, the more incentive individuals will have to pursue these types of attacks.
swiley 5y ago
My girlfriend manages with Pop_OS! At this point it's more user friendly than Windows.
YLYvYkHeB2NRNT 5y ago
You can run an Android device without ever signing into anything Google. F-droid and Aurora store, APK direct downloads. It is possible. I tried GrapheneOS, but am concerned about long-term development, hardware compromises. Their Element/Matrix threads can get very toxic.

roenxi 5y ago

> Like it or not, we aren't in control. The typical Apple customer is forking over thousands of dollars. They have substantial control. This isn't like a government where you need a plurality of voters to agree before anything starts to happen. Apple is running software on their phone that will either (a) do nothing or (b) call the police on them. The situation is questionable even for a normal consumer, let alone a nervous one. Maybe most people will weigh up the situation and keep buying Apple. But they are making a choice, they aren't powerless. And some will start asking how important smartphones really are.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
wizzwizz4 5y ago
> And some will start asking how important smartphones really are. I'm having to buy a smartphone to be able to wash my clothes.
mirkules 5y ago
My question is, who has funded this feature all the way from PoC to product? How did Apple calculate the ROI on this feature? It’s not like end users are tripping over themselves to have all their photos scanned. Does Apple just have gobs of money to burn on things like this that will not increase its bottom line by even one penny? There is probably funded from somewhere, and I’d like to know who is paying for it.
- seanp2k2 5y ago
  Probably, as other commenters have said, a mix of behind-the-scenes political pressure to give feds access to phone data for people they’re interested in and an effort to get them to back down on anti-trust and other things that governments are realizing they can milk tech companies for more money on.

speleding 5y ago

I still hope there is a chance that Apple may change course after they realise they may not have thought this through very well. Especially the argument that this can be weaponised really easily worries me, and it looks like they overlooked it. For example: some joker sends you a Whatsapp with a lewd picture, WhatsApp by default saves all pictures to your photo roll => you are now on the naughty list. I really hope they come up with a good answer to that one (or just abandon this unholy plan).

p2t2p 5y ago

I am cancelling my apple one subscription as we speak.

swiley 5y ago

I completed my move to the Pinephone and formatted my iPhone over this. I'm probably not alone.

queuebert 5y ago
I would love to read some first-hand experiences of the Pinephone or Librem phones on here.
- swiley 5y ago
  I've used one for a year now, it's a UMPC running Linux that can make phone calls. What do you want to know?
voakbasda 5y ago
Indeed. The PinePhone is my current plan for ditching my iPhone. I had planned to upgrade to the new 13 this fall, so thank goodness this happened now. Apple just saved me a lot of money!

sureglymop 5y ago

The real problem is late stage capitalism. The fact that a private company is too "big" and too powerful to be regulated by a single nation or even a coalition of nations is a big part of the problem. At the same time, changes in laws, constitutions and regulations take too long so they can't adapt quickly enough to edge cases. And even then, these companies have too much power and money, so they can do lobbying and so on. I see Apple as a particularly dangerous example, because they also have the "vote of the people". They are marketing wise on a level where they have an invincible reputation. People see the brand but almost no longer realize that this is a private company whose main goal is to generate profits. It might sound naive or obvious but as we go on this will only continue and there will be less and less ethical accountability.

rorykoehler 5y ago
These companies are just pseudo-departments of governments. They are working together on this rubbish

bArray 5y ago

> I was pretty convinced that people were taking Copilot seriously I think people used Copilot and realised it was a bit of a nothing burger. > find a way to combat the real threat: life goes on. That's the curse of the news cycle. But actions that do live on are monetary ones. When Apple miss sales targets, perhaps they will take note. > Your three bullet points are wonderful, and I agree entirely with them. And it won't change a damn thing. I think the last one is the most important, if each of us here can multiply the awareness of the problem, we can start to make real difference. Tech people have a massive influence over what devices ordinary people buy, after all, who will they go to for tech advice? > I'm not sure what to do about it. It's a tough problem, but what I do know is that doing nothing will 100% change nothing.

dmz73 5y ago

You can do two things: - fight : you will either join the establishment or have your life ruined but you won't change things - adapt : accept the things are the way they are and make the best of the situation In either case you can still get caught by the machine and get ground up, it has always been like that and as long as we are human it will always be like that. Any change that will happen is generational, 20 or 40 years from now the issues that are important to you now will be addressed by people who floated up to the top and are in position to make changes.

45ure 5y ago

>I'm not sure what to do about it For starters, please give up the defeatist attitude. They deserve the frontlash; even if it serves no purpose, as you describe it. Apple have placed 'Privacy' at the core of their messaging, in order to sell their high-end products. In comparison to the already excessive pearl clutching based on moral panic within the ecosystem e.g. sanitising and censoring language and apps. This is a scope-creep via thought terminating clichés like 'think of the children' and the boogeymen, which will not be enough of an explanation, when Apple ID's start getting locked out for capturing entirely innocent moments of their children's lives, or the intimate holiday snaps etc. Conversely, someone can weaponise it by sending you content that will besmirch your good name, or send you away for a stint in prison. Nonetheless, they will be a couple of moves away from either a lawsuit/collective action or a pushback from consumers, especially when the algorithm (wrongly) labels you as paedo, porn baron or worse -- then placing you in a Kafkaesque nightmare to explain yourself. https://www.apple.com/privacy/docs/A_Day_in_the_Life_of_Your_Data.pdf https://www.apple.com/privacy/docs/A_Day_in_the_Life_of_Your...

kktkti9 5y ago
They’ll scan content if you have it set to goto iCloud so as to avoid being an accomplice. Turn off sync to iCloud, make local backups only. Who is to say politicians who started threatening tech companies publicly haven’t made threats behind closed doors about Apple maybe being on the hook as an accomplice for distribution? My company only exists because our CEO had input on an executive order years ago. We hardly “made it” in the free market. The headlines never tell the full story. Media colludes with politics to generate “the right” sentiment. The spec and implementation details aren’t being discussed, just classic speculation on privacy and overreach. So much for this site having a higher level of discourse and it’s efforts to dissuade repetitive and knee jerk commentary though. We’d have nicer things if we discussed how things work and instead of what corporate media wants us to discuss.
- salawat 5y ago
  What we should really be hammering on I think is the vendor lock-in, walled garden, and monopolistic aspects. To me this CP scanning nonsense is Apple waving a carrot in front of the Establishment to get the Anti-Trust heat off, while selling everyone else on further degrading privacy through a slam dunk deliverable to satisfy the short-game players, but that's just me.

flemhans 5y ago

I can't have a phone or a computer that snoops on me to this degree. So for me I definitely won't change or forget in a week. Unless they solve it, there's no more Mac or iPhone for me. (This may actually be a Good Thing)

quickthrowman 5y ago

> In reality, four weeks from now, do you think anybody will still be talking about it? Nope, and it won’t have the slightest impact on Apple’s revenue or earnings either.

amarant 5y ago

Well, you can't save your friends, but you can save yourself: https://nixos.org/ https://nixos.org/

charbonneau 5y ago

A typical defeatist neo-luddism stance. You are part of the problem. Instead of spreading your nihilism, you could be a force for good. We are not powerless. We can make a difference. Contact your elected officials. Start a movement. Create a direct competitor to Apple. I know it’s tough, but we all just need to come together and stop the negativity. Excuses or results. You choose. Sent from my iPhone

whoaisme 5y ago
God pompous people like you are the worst. You are the same idiot that thinks recycling is the answer. It's actually your BS we have the power garbage that is the problem.
simonh 5y ago
Contacting your local representative is the right move. Bear in mind this change is specifically to comply with a law mandating the scanning of photos stored in the cloud, that’s why apart from the opt in for children’s iMessages, it only applies to photos you upload to iCloud storage. The way to stop companies complying with the law is to get the law changed.

simonh 5y ago

> Like it or not, we aren't in control. Yes you are. Leave the default and don’t enable this for your children’s iPhones, and the iMessage change won’t affect you. Switch off iCloud photo storage and none of your photos will be scanned. You have complete control over this.